The new library at Birmingham University has more than 40 miles of shelving and nearly 2,000 work stations.
Photograph: David Sillitoe for the Guardian

Students returning to the Edgbaston campus at Birmingham University, and freshers arriving for the first time, will see a couple of gleaming additions this autumn.

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Athletic types will appreciate a new £55m sports centre on the southern edge of the campus, including Birmingham’s only 50-metre swimming pool, six glass-backed squash courts, and gyms and halls that will cater for keen amateurs and budding Olympians alike.

On the other side of the campus, a golden-coloured new library has more than 40 miles of shelving, underlining the importance of books in the 21st century, and almost 2,000 work stations, each with a plug point. The library offers striking views over the campus and towards the city.

Diane Job, the director of library services, said: “Students no longer just look at what courses will offer. They come and look at the campus, they come and look at the library. I’m not sure I did that, but times have changed. Students now think about value for money.”

This sort of ambitious development – the current phase is costing £500m over five years – is by no means a phenomenon restricted to Birmingham.

The new sports centre to the south of Edgbaston campus cost £55m and features a 50-metre swimming pool. Photograph: David Sillitoe for the Guardian

Since 2012, Britain universities have embarked on building sprees in anticipation of increasing their undergraduate and graduate capacity, and improving their appeal to prospective students.

By 2013-14, annual capital expenditure by UK universities, including construction and refurbishment of accommodation, reached £2.5bn, a record annual figure. Half a million square metres was added, the equivalent of building almost five new universities.

There is no sign that this trend is slowing down: universities in London are eyeing up prime building plots across the capital, and centres of learning in northern England, the south-west and the east are developing and expanding.

Swansea University formally opened the first part of its Bay campus this summer, built on an old petrol storage site. The area needed extensive decontamination, but its attractions will include direct access to a beach and a seafront promenade.

Over in west Wales, Aberystwyth University’s £100m building programme includes redeveloping an old college on the seafront, to which there are plans to add exhibition spaces and artists’ studios.

The Welsh developments, however, are dwarfed by the estimated £1bn being spent by Cambridge University to finance the construction of what is in effect a new suburb two miles north-west of the city.

Extensive building work is under way at Cambridge University, in effect creating a new suburb just outside the city. Photograph: Nick Ansell/PA

Encompassing 1,500 new homes for university staff and a further 1,500 houses for private sale, as well as accommodation for 2,000 postgraduates, the development includes a state primary school, run by the university’s education faculty. This will sit alongside 100,000 sq metres of academic and research facilities, along with shops, a health centre, parks and a care home.

Are tuition fees responsible?

Graduates now leave higher education with an average debt of £44,000, compared with £16,000 for those who had graduated five years previously.

So it is understandable why students might be looking at the high spending and asking this question. Part of the reason for having the extra funds is simply because many universities have got bigger, and have more students.

Bath University, which is also undertaking extensive building work, insists that universities are not splashing the cash because they have huge amounts of extra funds due to tuition fee rises.

In a Q&A on its website, the university argues: “The way universities are funded has changed. Under the old system, the university received much more of its money from the taxpayer, via grants from the Higher Education Funding Council.

“The university would receive grants for teaching and buildings. Prior to the introduction of the higher tuition fee, this grant has been reduced each year, so the university has swapped one source of income for another.”

While it is true that direct grants have been cut as tuition fees increased, the combined income from both sources for universities was nearly £3bn more in 2014-15 than in 2010-11. And there are many more students on campus requiring accommodation and facilities: nearly 100,000 more fulltime undergraduates last year than four years earlier.

What it means is that universities such as Birmingham feel the need to compete more than ever.

Trevor Payne, the director of estates at Birmingham University, said: “We need to invest in the staff and student experience if we’re going to attract the best of the best.

“People make choices based on many things. One of the things people say about our university is that they love the campus. The fact that it’s self-contained, has green space and is seven minutes from the centre of Birmingham, with our own railway station, are all draws. They can envisage what experience they’ll get on on top of the academic one.”

As well as the sports centre and library, the university has recently opened a 21-storey hall of residence, which includes self-contained studios as well as study bedrooms, and a Tex-Mex restaurant. The campus is already leafy, but work on a “green heart”, with al fresco space for performances, socialising, meeting and working, is beginning.

Payne was talking in the foyer of another new building, the £16m Bramall Music Building, while the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra rehearsed upstairs. “It’s only right to expect that if people are paying that sort of money [tuition fees], they are getting value,” he said. “They want to see investment. We can demonstrate here we are investing in our infrastructure, facilities.”

Are students getting a good deal?

Gabriella Marcucci, a third-year English language student, said: “Sometimes I do think that £9,000 from lots of students is probably going on the building work. I think there could be more money spent on helping us with the everyday costs that we have to incur.

“But I guess the building work in turn is benefiting me. I’d probably be more annoyed if I hadn’t got to experience the library opening or got to see any of the new facilities at all.”